1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to novel insoluble solid supports carrying side chains bearing at least a reactive --NH.sub.2, to processes for obtaining them, to processes for chemically binding organic compounds having carbohydrate residues on these supports, as well as to the products and to reagents resulting from said chemical fixation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is known that biologically active proteins (such as hormones, antigens and enzymes, for example) can be attached to insoluble solid supports comprising latex spheres carrying lateral chains terminating in primary amine functions, by reaction of active groups of the amino acids of the protein chain with the primary amine groups of the support. It has also been proposed to use antigens fixed in the way which has just been very succinctly described above as biological reagents, but in association with developer reagents. The technique which has been mentioned is described notably by R. S. MOLDAY, W. J. DREYER, A. REMBAUM and S. P. S. YEN in "The Journal of Cell Biology", Volume 64 (1975) 75-88 and by R. W. LIM, R. S. MOLDAY, H. V. HUANG and SHIADO-PIN S. YEN in "Biochimica et Biophysica Acta" 394 (1975) 377-387, which relates to the fixation of antibodies on latex spheres by coupling the antibodies through the intermediary of their primary amine functions via covalent bonds onto the latex spheres, which themselves have previously been provided with lateral chains terminating by a primary amine function activated by the action of activators such as glutaraldehyde, cyanogen bromide or watersoluble carbodiimide.
Such a process for coupling proteins through the intermediary of their amino acids always presents a practical difficulty since to carry out the coupling to biologically active amino acids of the protein chain has the effect of reducing, in certain cases, the biological activity of the fixed protein molecule. In addition, the known processes, notably that of R. S. MOLDAY et al give rise to couplings of relatively low stability and of relatively low yields which reduce again their technical and economic interest.